2019-11-05 Tue

Latvia is a country on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Estonia. Its landscape is marked by wide beaches as well as dense, sprawling forests. Latvia’s capital is Riga, home to notable wooden and art nouveau architecture. It has a vast Central Market and a medieval Old Town with St. Peter's Church. Riga's museums include the Latvian Ethnographic Open-Air Museum, showcasing local crafts, food and music.

Latvia is a high-income advanced economy and a full member of the Eurozone. It began using the euro as its currency on 1 January 2014, replacing the Latvian Lats. The lats was first introduced on 3 August 1922, replacing the Latvian rublis and was subdivided into 100 santimi.

The note depicted in the image beside is a 20 Latu banknote issued from 1992. The obverse depicts a beautiful scene of a stylised oak leaf; Ancient Latvian homestead to centre right; vertical ornamental band composed of the motif of Lielvarde belt to extreme right. The reverse has motif of traditional Latvian ornaments. This note has a profile of a Latvian folk-maid wearing a traditional headdress as a watermark.

Image Courtesy: Foreign Currency and Coin